


Top of the Tower

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 23:36:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3429671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The empire of drugs and corruption is lead by one man. One man who is feared and respected throughout the domed city, who controls everything from crime to community. When the son who was supposed to take over is assassinated, the man hires his best to go and retrieve his other son, the only child left who can keep the dangerous bloodline alive. </p>
<p>Ash leaves to find the prodigal son, and is thrown into the world of whores, beggars, and liars. To drag Salex up from the pit he lives in, it will take everything Ash has. But what he doesn't know is that the place he's dragging Salex up to may be even more corrupt than the pit he's in. To protect and save the kid from a life no one should have, Ash will have to face more than he ever anticipated, the least of which being the Aptitudes that every person in the city uses against each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I need you to do a job for me.”

Ash stood stone-still on the other side of the mahogany desk, head slightly bowed as he listened.

“As you know, my oldest son has recently passed on due to an unfortunate… accident.”

Murder. It had, without a doubt, been murder. A hit had been placed on the ambitious blonde head of the charismatic, bright young man. Ash knew it wasn’t the man sitting across from him—despite all appearances, the man had truly loved his son. But why was the man calling it an accident? If he spoke about it in such a manner, it was obvious that the job he had planned wasn’t the revenge mission Ash had expected.

Leather creaked as the sleek, large man leaned back in his chair, watching Ash intently over steepled fingers. The glass of whatever strong alcohol he’d been drinking just before Ash had entered the room still sat where it previously had, untouched. It was a signal that if the man was talking, he was talking serious.

“Yes, it has deeply affected me. Seeing my own son die before my eyes has put many things into perspective. Perhaps the thing I’ve been contemplating most since his death is my own mortality. I’m approaching sixty and my family has a history of heart problems.”

Ash’s nod was so small it was barely imperceptible. The man wanted to talk seriously, and yet he still sprouted off a string of preamble. So whatever the job was, it was undesirable. Perhaps not for Ash, but definitely for the grieving man across from him.

“Death is slowly creeping up on me, and it’s the one thing I can’t pay off. Therefore, I need to consider my options. Annemarie has deeply disappointed me, running off to join our ridiculously authoritarian government, so she’s no longer even a possibility.”

Ah. So it was a matter of who would inherit the man’s empire of corruption and greed. With his oldest son, who’d had both the brains and leadership skills, the man hadn’t even considered the possibility of anyone else having to inherit the business. It was an interesting dilemma now—the son was dead and the cold, ruthless girl who’d sooner stab you in the back than offer you a smile had left to become a politician. With that, perhaps the long lineage of the family would come to an end.

“Ash… you have always been my best. Anything I’ve asked for, you’ve delivered in record time. Whether it was hits, overseeing transportation of certain goods, or getting disappointing people back on track. If you were my son…”

He let it hang in the air for a second before shaking his head sorrowfully and resting his hands on top of the desk. Ash examined them blankly; the thick fingers unadorned save the ring finger had immaculate nails. Not a speck of dirt to be seen. Hands that, in a metaphorical sense, should be dirtier than anyone’s. But those hands looked spotless, and for that reason even the police didn’t involve themselves.

“But you aren’t, and there’s no way my men would accept someone they see as a grunt. You’re much more than that, but we can’t share all of our secrets with them, can we?”

At that, the two men who stood stoically on either side of the massive man shifted rather uneasily. Everyone within the hierarchy knew Ash had some sort of special job, but no one knew—or even wanted to know—what exactly that job entailed.

“Room twenty-six fifty-six. The ‘Chariot Club.’ If I remember correctly, the address was ninety-eight fourteen on the main street. The main street on the eighth level.”

Ash finally raised his head to look the man full in the face. For the first time since this man had become his boss, he felt a twinge of apprehension. His boss’ eyes held a haunted look, and it wasn’t simply from the death of his child. It had something to do with whatever was in that room. Whoever?

“I never thought I’d call upon him, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

The boss unlocked his fingers to drum them slowly across the desk, a faraway look on his face.

“You see, Ash, our family has always had control of this group, this territory. There’s only one documented time where we didn’t, and that time was like a living hell for everyone involved. Men were moving above ground, conducting deals in the open. Money wasn’t being laundered, women and children were being obscene in the streets. It was so bad that the government got involved, put an end to it.”

If the government had gotten involved, it must’ve been bad. They gave the darker half of society the freedom the rest of the people weren’t allowed, because without some sort of outlet the city would’ve exploded into rebellion and anarchy a long time ago. However, there was certainly a limit on what was allowed—if anyone was too obvious, the smarter people would be able to see just how corrupt the government was.

“They handed control back to us with the guarantee that we’d be left alone. There was only one stipulation; control of this city has to stay within the family, because we’ve always known how to operate in the shadows. That’s why it has to be a child of mine.”

Ash leaned forward and spoke for the first time, his voice eerily soft and calm.

“Are you saying that there’s another?”

The two bodyguards standing on either side of the boss were impressive; they never flinched. Bodyguards usually always flinched when they heard Ash speak; some said they could hear their own death in his tone.

“Yes. This information is rather sensitive, so I’d prefer if you kept it quiet. At least for now.”

The underlying message was simple; shut up or you’ll be silenced. Permanently.

“I’ve told the rest of my men that the child Gwendolyn had passed on with her.”

Ash’s jaw twitched slightly, and it took all he had to keep it from falling open. Gwendolyn was the boss’ first wife, and everyone had been told that she couldn’t have children. She’d felt guilty, and due to that guilt she allowed him to impregnate other women. However, despite his many sexual escapades, his heart had always belonged to the kind, gentle woman. At least, until she’d died in childbirth after finally managing to conceive a child.

“Why?”

It came out as a tense whisper. A child with the genes of both the boss and Gwendolyn would have unbelievable potential. Potential to the point where…

“No, forgive me sir. I spoke out of turn. A child of that calibre would almost certainly attract unwanted eyes within the government. I understand your reasoning completely.”

The boss nodded in appreciation at Ash’s quick remedy. He’d always appreciated Ash’s ability to sense intentions within others, sometimes even before they did. Ash had caught on to this quickly, however he’d missed a large part of the reason, which was much simpler than anyone would expect.

“Yes, that was part of the reason. But the true reason, which I have no qualms about admitting, is that I resented the child that took my wife from me. I hated him. I didn’t want him to have claim even to a small part of the business. Ha! And look what fate did to me. I still hate him, but I have no other choices.”

Ash nodded and bowed stiffly at the waist.

“You’d like me to bring him back, then?”

A wheezing chuckle made Ash straighten, a guarded, questioning look evident on his face. The previous apprehension he’d felt before came back, this time stronger. It now felt like he would almost certainly face a job he didn’t want to do, a job no one even wanted done.

“Oh no. No, no, no. What I’d like is for you, my best subordinate, to get him into shape. I’ve kept an eye on things to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, so I know that as he is, he doesn’t have a hope in hell of looking after things when I’m gone. I need you to give him that hope, and I’ll finish his training.”

An excessively undesirable job indeed. The child would be nineteen by now, the entire incident with his birth occurring that many years ago. Nineteen was a difficult age; a person had a taste of independence, so they tended to be rebellious against anyone who restricted freedom the way a parent would. But at the same time, the wildness of trying new things and discovering themselves was still tantalizing, still not yet out of their system.

“Understood. I’ll make contact with him, ensure that he has some form of maturity, then contact you and wait for further instruction. Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”

There was nothing to be done about it; he would have to do as the boss had said. Besides, he was curious to find out just how gifted a child born from two parents considered geniuses would be. People with abilities like the boss’ and Gwendolyn’s were exceedingly rare, so people like them having child was practically unheard of.

“Very good, Ash, very good. You never cease to win my deepest respect and admiration. Hm… now that you mention it, however, there is one other thing you could help me with.”

A grin split the sizeable man’s face and his eyes flickered from left to right before settling back on Ash’s face. Of course. He wouldn’t want anyone else to know, no matter how trustworthy they seemed. The less people that knew, the less the cleanup crew had to work if a mess ever broke out.

Too bad, Ash thought to himself, the ones that don’t flinch never seem to last.


	2. Chapter 2

Sex. Banging. Fucking. Screwing. Shagging. My personal favourite, the old in-out. It’s all one and the same, but we have more slang words for it than almost any other activity. Wanna know why? It’s because that’s what the world revolves around. That’s what’s on everyone’s mind ninety-five percent of the time.

“Not mine!” you say? Ha. Liar. I know, as hard as you try to focus on productive things, your mind always ends back up on reproductive things. Nothing wrong with it; that’s how we pass on genes. And have a hell of a good time at the same time.

“Almost done?”

My voice was muffled, mostly because it was full of dick. Now don’t get the wrong idea; I’m not gay. Although saying I’m straight wouldn’t exactly be right either. I’m more… ambiguous. Maybe spontaneous would be a better word? Whatever, I just like pleasure. Men, women, people who have the body of one but the mind of another… I fuck and get fucked by them all. I’m more or less a man whore.

The guy above me grunted and tugged my head closer, thrusting roughly into my mouth. I raised an eyebrow, holding back a gag. He was getting off, alright, but at this rate…

“Mmph, mm, hmp!”

I tried to speak, but when I realized it wasn’t going to work, I jerked my head back. Of course, his hands were entwined so tight into my hair that all I succeeded in doing was ripping off half of my scalp. At least, that’s what it felt like. This fucker…

He let out a long, loud moan, thrusting in so deep that I had no choice but to gag as I swallowed a mouthful of his load. He still held my head there for a couple of seconds longer, which only served to piss me off more, before releasing me and stepping away hastily to jerk up boxers and jeans.

“What the fuck, man? I told you I hate when people come in my mouth! This is disgusting.”

I stood up, spitting on the ground, wiping my mouth with both hands. That was one of my very few rules; you can come anywhere but in the mouth. My mouth is sacred. It helps me con people into doing what I want.

“What does it matter? You’re a whore anyway.”

I straightened indignantly, crossing my arms over my chest and narrowing my eyes. Yeah, I was, but I still hated when people used that as an excuse to do whatever the hell they wanted. Besides, the guy I’d just gotten off wasn’t even remotely attractive. I could do much better, but I’d been in a particularly lazy mood and had chosen the easiest, sleaziest person. Besides me, of course.

“A hundred extra bucks.”

                His look was so incredulous I wanted to laugh. I don’t charge everyone for my services, but when they have a family they prefer to be charged. It makes things feel less personal, more like business.

“You’re lucky I even paid you at all, kid. Now scram before I take the money back and your body ends up as hamburg on the city sidewalk.”

My sigh was huge as I stretched my arms over my head, then cracked my neck. It was a tough neighborhood I lived in. There was no doubt in my mind that this guy would carry out the threat if things continued this way. He’d chuck me right over the balcony one room over, and I’d fall down, down, down, until splat. Wouldn’t be very nice for the people who had to scrape me off the pavement. Of course, they scraped people off of it every day, so I suppose it wouldn’t be much of a change.

“Look, man, I don’t want any trouble. I just want my money. Give me an extra hundred and we can forget the whole thing. If you don’t, though, I just won’t be able to forget the fact that you defiled my mouth. Food will taste gross, talking will feel weird, kissing girls will be disgusting… Neither of us want that, do we?”

He had disregarded me after making the threat, but now he turned back with a dangerous glint in his eyes. Oh yeah, that was the look. The ‘I’m-going-to-fucking-kill-your-punk-ass’ look. I got that look every single day of my life, and magically, I’m still alive.

“Fuck. Off.”

He took one step closer. I could smell a rank, sour smell coming off of him; he hadn’t washed in days. As for alcohol… he must’ve been bathing in the stuff. Old, dark stubble lined his squared jaw, suggesting that shaving hadn’t crossed his mind these last three days. Why hadn’t I noticed before? I definitely wouldn’t have chosen him if I’d known his outer appearance was even worse than his inner.

My eyes tracked off of his face to look around the room. I needed some nice scenery to take my mind off of the ugly brute. The bed was plush, round, and a cheap canopy hung over it in a way that screamed sleaze. Equally as bad was the poorly stained cover; fur with zebra stripes. I thought. I hoped it wasn’t originally black, because that was quite a disturbing thought. The carpet… well, I don’t want to get into it. Actually, there wasn’t a single thing in the room that was beautiful. Even the flowery wallpaper had long since faded and yellowed.

“Yeah, I wanna get out of here. There isn’t a single thing in here that I like. But I need the money.”

One step closer and he was towering over me, the sour smell even worse than before. Beefy hands grabbed the front of my shirt and hefted me—rather impressively I might add—into the air.

“Why didn’t you use any of this strength when you fucked me? It would’ve made things a lot better.”

A vein popped above his eyes. I shit you not, the veins in his face all popped out and his anger flushed his face so bad I wondered for a second if he would have a coronary before he carried out his threat. His thoughts were a mass of rage and confusion as he marched me to the door, which made a very sexual computer automated noise when he opened it. This place just kept making me more and more nauseous.

“You should’ve just kept your pretty little mouth shut.”

He certainly wasn’t thinking straight; he was going to throw me off the balcony without even taking the five hundred he’d stuffed into my pocket back. I could’ve reminded him, but I didn’t really care.

“What about Sarah?”

There it was. My endgame. One of the reasons why I was considered the greatest hustler in the city.

There was an audible choking sound as he processed what I’d just said. His face grew even redder, and his poor, idiotic face looked hopelessly confused. I kind of felt bad for him. Not really because I was going to fuck him over, but more because his life royally sucked.

He’d been born into a relatively poor family, both parents addicts. He tried his best to break the cycle, even managed to work hard enough to put himself through a decent school and get into the police, but it all went downhill from there. He saw the worst dregs of society every day; murders, rapes, suicides, etcetera, and he’d been put on a particularly bad case that involved child sex trade. He tried his best to stop it, but the higher ups ordered him to cease and desist. Guess the government was pulling in a pretty penny from it too. It messed him up so bad even his pretty, plump wife couldn’t make it better. He started drinking, taking his frustration out on whores, because weren’t they just as corrupt as everyone else? He killed a girl when she threatened to tell his wife, and since then he’s been drifting through life on a haze of cocaine, the only thing of any really value to him being his marriage.

To be honest, it’s a pretty common story around here.

“H-how did you know?”

He breathed it out thickly, his breaths coming in quick pants now. His father had died of a heart attack, and there wasn’t really any room for doubt that the same thing would take him down soon too.

“Doesn’t matter. Because of this fuss, you’ve put me in a bad mood. I’ll take five hundred extra. Hard cash.”

His tiny little brain worked, trying to see a way he could stop me from ‘squealing like a little pig’ to his lovely wife. He wasn’t all that bright, and he certainly wasn’t all that talented. The only thing he could do was understand any spoken language, but we had robotic translators for that so it was an obsolete Aptitude.

Ah, there it was. That little click, the one that happened when pieces of a puzzle fell into place in a person’s mind. ‘He can’t tell my wife if he’s dead.’ Yeah, buddy, that’s very true. If I’m dead, I can’t tell Sarah that you prefer screwing teenage boys over her.

“Just to let you know, Johnny, it’s not me that’s going to tell her if you don’t give me the cash.”

Damn, he was slow. If he were a street kid, he would’ve just given me the hundred bucks, because he’d know that these kinds of things had happened before, and if I was still alive, I shouldn’t be messed with. Instead he was still trying to figure out why I thought I was safe. ‘Why the fuck isn’t this kid freaking out? What does he have?’

“What I have, Johnny, is a girl. I’d say girlfriend, but people always get the wrong idea when I say that. They think I mean fuck-buddy, when I really mean ‘a-girl-who-is-my-friend.’ But don’t sweat it, it doesn’t matter. You came into this place without even looking around to see if there were any cameras. It’s not a discrete love hotel, Johnny, it’s a club.”

That was one thing I never understood; did people think public clubs were safe? I guess I can see it in a way, considering the fact that the Big Cherry, as we call it, is a private club. But still, private basically means that no Skunks are allowed. Chamis still get in. And Chamis, blending in rather than giving off the ‘cop smell’ like Skunks, were smart. Meaning they knew just to where to hide cameras so that no one would ever find them.

“Even if there were cameras, how would someone like you get access to them? You’re too young to be a Chami!”

Now he was becoming desperate. When people become desperate, their thoughts start to get faster. Problem is, in this case faster isn’t better. Because all they do is run around in circles throughout their minds, trying to find a way out of an endless loop of ‘What should I do?’ ‘My life is over.’ ‘Oh my god.’ ‘I have to do something.’

“You’re totally right, Johnny. I’m not a Chami. Neither is Tara, the girl I mentioned. But Tara is something real special.”

His mind emptied as he slowly lowered me to the ground, defeated. He knew it was over for him, even if he didn’t quite grasp why.

“So she can… She’s a… She…”

Poor guy didn’t even know what to say.

“Yeah, Johnny. Her Aptitude is in technology. Connections, to be more exact. Meaning she can touch one power source in this building and sense every single thing connected to it. She’s brilliant; twenty three and she can control it to the degree where she can isolate a single device and do whatever she wants with it. In this case, the device is the camera hidden in the wall back in that shithole of a room. And what she’s doing is recording it on a monitor in the security room.”

That, and making sure the audio on the Chami’s recording device was messed up. If anyone smart who worked for the government heard what she could do, she’d either be killed or recruited. Most likely the former, considering the fact that she loathes the government more than anyone I’ve ever met.

Johnny bowed his head, cruel thoughts directed toward the both of us slicing sharply through his mind. He pulled out a tattered leather wallet and counted out the last of his paycheck, handing me the exact amount I’d asked for. He turned to leave without another word, thinking that if he had to speak to me one more time, he’d kill me regardless of the consequences.

“Johnny? Your wife is a treasure of a woman. You should stop running around with trash and look after her. The baby’s gunna need you around.”

He paused and turned, one word echoing throughout his head that banished all other thoughts.

“Baby?”

I nodded serenely. I doubted even Sarah knew it, but she was pregnant. She’d been dropping little hints for the past month, but Johnny was too stupid to pick up on them and Sarah was too busy looking after the bills and meals to pay attention.

“Screw off, you goddamn little bitch. You don’t know anything about me.”

And this is why we can’t have nice things, Johnny. Every time I try to give people a nice thing, they throw it back in my face.

I snorted, and jammed the money into my pocket, heading in the opposite direction from Johnny. At least he didn’t question how I knew anything. His skull was so thick it would probably be a couple of days before he even realized something was amiss with my amount of knowledge. Whatever. I was already banishing him from my mind. I needed to prepare myself for the wrath that was Tara.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“How many times do I have to tell you, Salex, talking to that asshole the way you did is risky!”

Tara lived with me in the spacious apartment above the club. I’d never considered even trying to make a friend, but she’d barrelled into my life the way she was apt to do just the same. She was the club owner’s daughter, and after her mother had kicked her out of the house for hacking into the eight floor’s large billboard and broadcasting porn, she’d needed a place to say. Naturally, her father had suggested one of the apartments above his club. And, of course, he didn’t want to kick me out so we ended up as roommates.

“It’s cool, I knew you had me covered.”

We’d fought like cats and dogs at first, her with her fiery personality and me with my lax, lazy one. But it turned out we had a lot in common, the main thing being that we both enjoyed a good taste of mischief. After discovering that, I managed to rope her into my hustling act and we’ve been swindling the customers of this club out of millions since.

“I try, but you have no idea how much we’re always being watched. There’s a possibility that I missed something, and that they now know about your Aptitude.”

Unless you’re completely fucking retarded, you’ve probably realized by now that my Aptitude is in psychology. Psychological Aptitudes number among the rarest, with mine being perhaps the rarest of all; mind reading. It’s something everyone’s heard of, so it seems like it should be common, but it isn’t. Probably because the government went all Hitler on mind readers and slaughtered them all off.

“Tara, you’re my girl. You think I don’t know when you’re lying?”

Why, you ask? Why, because then everyone would know how corrupt the government is, of course! We went from democracy to authoritarian in record time. They control everything now, from what job you get based on your Aptitude right up to who you’re allowed to have a relationship with.

“This is why people think we’re fuck-buddies. Because you say shit like that.”

You may be wondering, ‘Then why did Johnny have to work hard to put himself through a decent school? Doesn’t the government pay for schooling if they’re deciding where you go?’ Well, there’s the question, isn’t it? Let me tell you a secret that only the worst of us know; the government doesn’t give a shit about people with obsolete Aptitudes. Those kinds of people are left to their own devices. Whether they starve to death on the street or not is completely up to them. The only thing the government will do for them is clean up their bodies.

“If I cared what people think, I’d kill myself.”

So what about kids like Tara and me? Tara’s father’s aptitude is environmental; sensing the weather. Her mother’s is an even worse environmental; finding water. Good for survival outside, crap for survival in a city where you can buy whatever you need. Usually, two obsoletes make an obsolete child. But for whatever reason (scientists say evolution), some have children with extremely useful, valuable Aptitudes. Like Tara.

“Read my mind, Sale.”

As for me… my father more or less owns the dregs of society. He’s the top dog in the mafia, everyone’s heard of him. He’s psychological, and so was my mother. Together, they had a kid with a top class Aptitude. But my father hated me after my mother died in childbirth, so he kicked me to the curb when I was ten. I’m surprised he didn’t serve me to the government on a silver platter, but I suppose I look enough like my mother that he’d feel guilty about obviously killing me.

“Hm… I’m reading it. A hot, dark skinned woman with big tits left me a note?”

I finally tore my eyes from the TV and aimed a charming smile at Tara, who was lying across the entire couch with her feet resting in my lap. She was, by all standards, gorgeous. Thick, perfect scarlet curls matching the colour of her lips tumbled halfway down her back, coming to a rest about a foot high off of her nicely rounded ass. The way she was laying, prostrate on her back with both arms behind her head, really showed off her figure. She didn’t have huge boobs, but they were well proportioned with her the rest of her body. The only reason she couldn’t be a model was because she was extremely short.

“I was talking about reading the part concerning how much of a prick you are, but now that you mention it, that’s true.”

She sat up and snatched the cigarette from my mouth, placing it between her own lips and taking a drag. I rolled my eyes and pulled another one out of my pocket, lighting it before speaking again.

“So tell me about it.”

I let her talk because it’s weird for other people to have a conversation with me straight out of their head. Tara’s more used to it than most, but she still finds it unsettling from time to time. She’d never admit it, but I already know and she knows I know.

“Alright. If you really want me to, I’ll read it aloud. It says, ‘To my dearest Salex, last night was absolutely incredible. Being with you gave me pleasures and thrills like I’ve never felt before. If you enjoyed it as much as you seemed to, could you please meet me in the usual place at twelve? Whenever I think about you, I just start getting so we—’”

“Yeah, that’s enough.”

Tara snorted and threw the note she’d picked up on the floor. I looked at the floor idly; it was filthy. There were notes like that all over the place. Some of them were romantic, filled with enough cheese to make us both gag. Others were filled with lewdness you couldn’t even begin to imagine, describing in detail exactly what someone wanted to do to me or what I was going to do to them.

But notes weren’t all; old boxes of crackers, empty wrappers from shitty convenience store food, beer bottles, and unused condoms also all littered the floor.

“Hey…”

I moved Tara’s feet, much to her whine of protest, and leaned down to pick something up off of the floor. I held it up, examining it for a couple of minutes.

“Is this weed?”

Tara laughed heartily and snatched the huge bag away from me. Jesus, how much weed was in there? The amount of drugs, alcohol, and sex that happened in this place was sickening. I stood up, a frown drawing my lips down as I moved to the large window overlooking the city.

Our city was one of the first to get too big. Cities kept expanding and expanding to the point where greenbelt laws were being ignored and forests were being decimated. Obviously we had to do something, considering the fact that trees give us oxygen, so instead of building out, we started building up.

I think it was around five hundred years ago when humanity seemed like it would die out. People were getting sick from all of the pollution, life was more or less unsustainable, and the population just kept increasing. Until one day, it stopped. People just stopped being able to have kids; it was a medical anomaly.

Naturally, everyone was desperate to go out and spread their genes, so it caused huge panic. Who would carry on everything we learned? Who would remember everything we did? What would become of humanity? And, while everyone was freaking, some lady in an African country had a child. But it wasn’t a normal child; whereas usually only parts of your brain are active, this kid’s whole brain was active all the time. And its parts didn’t function like a normal brain, nor did its brain waves behave the way a normal person’s would.

I don’t know all of the science of it, but what I do know is that more and more children were born like that. They grew up for maybe thirty years before the plague came and wiped out everyone who didn’t have whatever mutation the children had. That mutation not only allowed them to survive, but it also allowed them to manifest certain abilities, abilities we call Attributes.

Fast forward to now. Everyone here is a descendent of those children. People were worried that a plague like the last one could spread again, so they built domes around each city to make every city a self-contained little bubble. To leave, you need a shitload of medical forms and special permissions, and even then it’s hard.

Building giant domes that allow people to control the weather from the inside is obviously hard, so instead of building them all around cities, people destroyed the houses that spread too far out and started building up. With our Attributes, we could do things we’d never even dreamed of before, and defying gravity wasn’t all that hard. Our city, Damic, is currently forty two levels tall, each level measuring roughly one mile high. As you can imagine, the rich are at the top and the poor are at the bottom. My father is on level forty.

“What’s with the crease in that youthful forehead of yours, baby boy?”

Tara came up behind me and wrapped her arms around me from behind, standing on the tips of her toes to rest her head on my shoulder and look out over the city with me.

“I’m afraid of heights.”

I was only half joking. With the money we made off of the people I hustled, we could be living comfy somewhere on floor thirty, with all of the rich doctors, lawyers and politicians. But their world scared me more than I cared to admit. People down here are dirty and don’t play fair, but at least everyone knows it. Up there, everyone’s smiling to each other’s faces while imagining the best way to kill each other.

“It’s okay. We’ll go all the way to the bottom. I don’t mind sleeping in a gutter with you.”

She laughed breathily into my ear. I loved Tara more than anything; she said exactly what was on her mind. Many people thought she was too blunt, but when you read minds bluntness becomes something to respect, considering how many people hide nearly everything they think.

“You’re nuts, T.”

She really would sleep in a gutter with me; that was just the way she was. I turned back around to face her and leaned forward, planting a kiss on the top of her head. We’d contemplated having purely physical sex for fun, but in the end we’d decided against it. That kind of stuff can turn too emotional way too fast. Which is a pity because she’s certainly as fiery as she looks in bed.

“I may be some kind of crazy, but you’re all kinds, hun. I think it’s time for you to go to sleep. Today was physically exhausting; I had to sit here and watch you get fucked every which way and now I’m all horny. I’m going out, and this time you’re not going to a place where I’m going to worry about you. Go to bed.”

My jaw cracked in a yawn as she spoke and I nodded languidly, leaning past her to stub out my cigarette. She reached up to ruffle my hair, before skipping to the door with an ‘I’ll be back by one’ mind-statement. The door slammed before I had time to reply, and I dropped heavily onto the couch.

“You can come out now, Ash.”

I directed my gaze towards the window. Or, more accurately, to the funky spotted curtain resting silently against it. There was a slight ruffle, and then Ash stepped out. I didn’t know him—I only called him by name because it was one of things he’d been idly thinking about while waiting for Tara to leave. I leaned deeply back into the couch and closed my eyes. Try as I might, it was impossible to stop a tiny smile from tilting my mouth upwards. After all, it seemed circumstances were quite dire for my old man.

“So… the old man’s finally gotten up the nerve to play, has he?”

I cracked my eyes only a little to give Ash a cat-like grin. No matter how hard he tried to hide his surprise at discovering a mind reader, it would never work.

“Well then, I’ll make the first move. Go back and tell him to take his offer and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”


End file.
